The present invention relates, in general, to CATV terminal equipment, and, more particularly, to a control apparatus capable of selectively setting specific channels in a looking/listening inhibited state and a looking/listening allowed state. That is, the present control apparatus can either inhibit or allow a user's looking at and listening to a specific channel.
In general, a CATV system may distribute programs which parents desire to prohibit their children from seeing or hearing. Further, parents may want to prohibit the selection of fee-charging programs. Therefore, CATV subscribers who receive such programs may wish to prohibit someone from looking or listening to such programs even though the person has selected one of the specific channels to obtain the programs.
Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, conventional CATV terminal equipment has a changeover switch SW provided to selectively inhibit looking/listening on specific channels, and a key attachment A, provided adjacent to the changeover switch SW, to attach a key K for inhibiting the operation of a knob N of the changeover switch SW, by which the changeover switch SW can be changed to a looking/listening allowed state by moving the knob N after detaching the key K from the key attachment A. In short, looking/listening cannot be performed on specific channels unless the looking/listening inhibited state is released.
In the conventional configuration, however, persons managing the key K, such as parents, must unlock the key K to detach the key K from the key attachment A of the CATV terminal equipment, and then operate the knob N to change the changeover switch SW to a looking/listening allowed state whenever they want to look/listen to specific channels. In addition, they must change the changeover switch SW to a looking/listening inhibited state and attach the key K to the key attachment A to lock the key K whenever looking/listening is finished. A problem arises in that they must carry out the troublesome and complex procedure each time they desire to look at or listen to a selected program.